Chapter 108: Legend, Peerless Blade Saint!

High above the clouds, [Garuda Skyfall Wings] moved gently behind Joren.

Each beat of those enormous cyan wings left a long sonic cloud trailing across the sky.

The gray mist realm had already disappeared far behind him.

"Whew..."

Joren watched the system panel flickering across his vision.

After slaughtering the Beast Tide alone, his Bloodstar balance had climbed just past one hundred thousand.

One hundred thousand.

A threshold.

His gaze moved over row after row of purple Talents before stopping on the one that had accompanied him the longest, and had always been his most reliable source of killing power.

[Primordial Bladebody, Purple]

Ever since he obtained it, this Talent had been one of the foundations that allowed him to kill above his rank.

It had led him to Blade Intent.

It had given birth to Blade Dominion.

Against enemies of the same rank, or even those above him, it had never failed him.

Now that his Bloodstars had broken through one hundred thousand, there was no question which Talent he wanted to evolve first.

"System."

Joren drew a slow breath.

"Spend 100000 Bloodstars."

"Evolve [Primordial Bladebody]."

Boom!

The moment one hundred thousand Bloodstars disappeared, something seemed to detonate inside his sea of consciousness.

Nothing before had come close.

If evolving a purple Talent felt like streams converging into a river, then this was a celestial flood crashing down from the heavens, dragging stars with it.

There was no pain.

Instead, Joren felt strangely weightless, as though even his soul were being lifted beyond itself.

His body seemed to melt.

Bone.

Blood.

Flesh.

Every cell was broken apart by some supreme law, then rebuilt.

The sharp force that had always filled his body began to recede.

Not weaken.

Change.

Like peerless steel hammered countless times until every trace of raw heat had been driven away, leaving behind a divine weapon so refined that it no longer needed to display its edge.

Clang.

Brilliant orange light slowly gathered across Joren’s vision.

[Ding! Talent evolution successful.]

[Congratulations. The host has obtained the first orange Talent.]

[Talent: Peerless Blade Saint]

[Grade: Orange]

[Description: You are no longer one who wields the blade. You are the embodiment of the Blade Path, sovereign over all weapons. From this moment onward, there is no Bladecraft beneath heaven that stands above you, because every movement you make already contains the deepest truth of the blade.]

[Blade Intent Transcendence: You have surpassed the limits of Battle Presence and awakened a power belonging solely to yourself, Intent. Where your will points, the blade follows. Even empty handed, the intent within your heart can sever mountains and rivers.]

[Submission of All Blades: No blade in this world dares harm its sovereign. All bladed weapons directed against you, including swords, axes, and similar weapons, have their power forcibly reduced by 90 percent.]

[Blade, Come: Your attacks are no longer limited to the physical world. There is nothing beneath heaven that you cannot cut.]

So this was an orange Talent.

Not a single numerical value dominated the description.

Yet every line seemed capable of crushing numbers entirely.

[Blade Intent Transcendence].

Something shifted in Joren’s vision.

Everything had patterns.

Everything also had weaknesses.

Follow those patterns, cut along the right line, and even a piece of straw could split the hardest diamond.

That was Intent.

Rank Five cultivated Battle Presence, borrowing the momentum of heaven and earth to overwhelm an enemy.

Rank Six went beyond that.

Intent meant engraving one’s own will into heaven and earth.

My heart becomes the heart of heaven.

My will becomes the will of heaven.

Normally, only a Rank Six expert who had trained for decades and survived countless brushes with death might begin to touch this threshold.

Joren had barely entered Rank Five.

Yet he had already crossed it.

More than crossed it.

He had reached transcendence.

"So this is... Intent?"

Joren murmured.

His right hand slowly reached into empty air and closed around nothing.

There was no blade in his palm.

Yet the air within a thousand meters froze.

An invisible long blade took shape in his hand, formed from compressed air and sheer will.

Joren gave it a casual swing.

The cloud sea around him was thousands of meters thick.

It split apart as neatly as cheese beneath a dinner knife.

A vast scar tens of thousands of meters long opened through the clouds, its edges smooth as polished glass.

Through that enormous gap, mountains and rivers far below suddenly came into view.

More strangely, the clouds did not close again.

Mist rolled toward the edge of the cut, then recoiled before reaching it, as though something terrifying still lingered there.

The remaining blade intent refused to fade.

A wound had been carved into the sky itself.

Not merely cloud.

That violent Intent continued suppressing the air ten thousand meters above the earth.

"So strong..."

Joren looked at what he had done.

Even he needed a moment to absorb it.

This power had moved beyond everything he previously understood about combat.

"That hundred thousand was worth every point."

He crushed the invisible blade in his hand and let the air disperse.

That had only been a weapon shaped from air.

If he used [Heaven’s Sin] instead...

Joren almost did not want to imagine it.

Even Kyo, with one foot already in Rank Six, might not be able to take that casual strike head on.

As for a true Rank Six expert...

A spark of anticipation appeared in Joren’s eyes.

He might actually be able to fight one.

His mood improved immediately.

The cyan wings behind him opened wide.

Boom!

Joren became a streak of light and tore across the sky toward Norcrest.

...

At the same time, hundreds of kilometers from the stone forest, inside a mountain valley.

Roar!

A savage bellow shattered the silence.

The valley shook violently a moment later.

"Hold the line!"

"Do not scatter!"

"Push forward! Do not let it break through!"

Shouts echoed between the cliffs.

A squad dressed in matching silver white combat suits was scrambling to avoid a series of attacks.

Their equipment was exceptional.

Every member wore A Class alloy armor. The weakest weapon among them was B Class, while two of the students even carried weapons approaching S Class quality.

A soaring dragon was engraved across the badges on their chests.

Beneath it were four gilded words.

Highcrest Dragon Abyss.

Anyone familiar with the name would have immediately understood what kind of group this was.

Highcrest College.

The number one college in Highcrest City.

One of the Eight Colleges and Two Academies of the Aurelian Dominion.

Every student admitted there had once stood among the finest young talents of their home city.

And this squad was made up of the strongest seniors of their year.

Their average age was barely twenty two.

The weakest among them had already reached peak Rank Three. Several of the leaders had stepped into early stage Rank Four.

In any ordinary second tier city, a group like this would be treated as honored guests wherever they went.

Here, they were being driven around the valley like chicks beneath a hunting eagle.

Dust covered their armor.

No one had time to care.

Across from them stood a giant beast fifteen meters tall.

A massive ape covered from head to toe in blood red stone armor.

Its eyes burned scarlet.

Every swing of its fists smashed a crater more than ten meters wide into the ground.

An early stage Rank Five beast king.

Mount Shifting Demon Ape.

Boom!

A broad shouldered young man raised a massive shield.

The ape’s fist struck.

He flew backward, coughing blood before he even hit the ground.

The A Class alloy shield in his hands, sturdy enough to withstand rocket fire, had folded like scrap metal.

"Watch out!"

A tall woman with short hair shouted from the rear.

She was the squad’s vice captain and one of its main attackers.

Her sword hand was shaking.

"The intelligence is wrong!"

Beside her, another young man desperately raised wall after wall of ice in front of the charging ape.

"Who the fuck said this thing had just given birth and was in a weakened state?"

Another ice wall shattered.

He shouted through the flying debris.

"Its Vital Force is stronger than my instructor’s!"

"This thing is at full strength!"